in commerce, a soft downy substance found on the bombax, or cotton tree. See Bombax.

Cotton is separated from the seeds of the plant by a mill, and then spun and prepared for all sorts of fine works, as stockings, waistcoats, quilts, tapestry, curtains, &c. With it likewise make muslin, and sometimes it is mixed with wool, sometimes with silk, and even with gold itself.

The finest sort comes from Bengal and the coast of Coromandel.

Cotton makes a very considerable article in commerce, and is distinguished into cotton-wool, and cotton thread. The first is brought mostly from Cyprus, St John d'Acre, and Smyrna: the most esteemed is white, long, and soft. Those who buy it in bales should see that it has not been wet, moisture being very prejudicial to it. The price of the finest is usually from six to seven piasters the quintal of forty-four ocos.

Of cotton thread, that of Damas, called cotton d'ounce, and that of Jerusalem, called bazas, are the most esteemed; as also that of the Antilles islands. It is to be chosen white, fine, very dry, and evenly spun. The other cotton-threads are the half bazas, the rames, the bedelin, and gondezel; the payas and montafiri, the genequins, the baquins, the joffelaffars, of which there are two sorts. Those of India, known by the name of Tutucorin, Java, Bengal, and Surat, are of four or five sorts, distinguished by the letters A, B, C, &c. They are sold in bags, with a deduction of one pound and a half on each of those of Tutucorin, which are the dearest, and two pounds on each bag of the other sorts. For those of Fielebas, Smyrna, Aleppo, and Jerusalem, the deduction at Amsterdam is eight in the hundred for the tare, and two in the hundred for weight, and on the value one per cent. for prompt payment.

Cotton of Siam, is a kind of silky cotton in the Antilles, so called because the grain was brought from Siam. It is of an extraordinary fineness, even surpassing silk in softness. They make hose of it there preferable to silk ones, for their lustre and beauty. They sell from ten to twelve and fifteen crowns a pair, but there are very few made, unless for curiosity.

The manner of packing Cotton, as practised in the Antilles. The bags are made of coarse cloth, of which they take three ells and a half each: the breadth is one ell three inches. When the bag has been well soaked in water, they hang it up, extending the mouth of it to crofs pieces of timber nailed to posts fixed in the ground seven or eight feet high. He who packs it goes into the bag, which is six feet nine inches deep, or thereabouts, and presses down the cotton, which another hands him, with hands and feet; observing to tread it equally everywhere, and putting in but little at a time. The best time of packing is in rainy moist weather, provided the cotton be under cover. The bag should contain from 300 to 320 pounds. The tare abated in the Antilles is three in the hundred. Cotton being a production applicable to a great variety of manufactures, it cannot be too much cultivated in our own plantations that will admit of it.

Cotton-wool, not of the British plantations, pays on importation 1/3d. the pound, and draws back on exportation 6/7d. Cotton yarn the pound, not of the East Indies, pays 2/87/100d., and draws back 2/58/100d.

Cotton yarn the pound of the East Indies pays 4/56/100d., and draws back 4/72/100d.

Lavender Cotton. See Santolina.

Philosophic Cotton, a name given to the flowers of zinc, on account of their white colour, and resemblance to cotton.

Cotton-weed. See Gnaphalium.